Land surveys are an important part of the planning and construction processes. Conventionally, preparing a land survey required extensive use of terrestrial survey instruments to obtain position measurements of various features within the survey site. The expense of the equipment involved, along with the required time commitment and labor-intensive nature of the measurements, necessarily requires considerable investment in time and money prior to beginning any development activities.
On the other hand, aerial photography of a subject area can provide a relatively efficient way to quickly gain a rough understanding of the topology of an area. Such photography, however, generally is performed using aircraft and/or satellites, which necessarily entail significant costs and administrative inconvenience. Moreover, aerial photographs, which necessarily are taken from altitudes ranging from several thousand feet to several miles, cannot provide imagery with sufficient resolution to allow analysis with the precision required for a land survey.
Accordingly, there is a need for more efficient techniques to generate data necessary for land surveys.